That which characterized most of the foreign tourists who visited Greece in the first years of its independence was not so much their pro-Hellenism as their orthodox enthusiasm for archaeology, that is, their boundless worship of everything that is ancient Greek. The names of Kolokotronis, Botsaris, Karaiskakis, Miaoulis and Kanaris appealed to their emotions much less than the memory of Miltiades, Themistocles, Phocion, and Demosthenes. Their souls were electrified much more by the triumph of Marathon and the naval battle of Salamis than by the battle of Arahova and the burning of the Turkish flagship in Chios.

These noble strangers in visiting Greece believed that they should really see not the soiled Foustanella but the becoming mantles of the ancients, that they should hear not the songs of Kleftes but the verses of Pindar.

This somewhat curious psychology, yet not barren of noble ideals, was the cause of the amusing remarks in which the writings of these strange worshippers of things ancient abound. Their first disappointment in 2reaching Peiraeus and seeing nothing to resemble ancient Greece except the immortal marbles of the Parthenon, caused them to utter cries of righteous indignation.

Something of the sort happened to an English lord who went to Greece in 1836 to let his eyes admire what had fascinated his imagination in reading the ancient Greek authors. What indignation was his when, on landing at Peiraeus, he found a coach ready to carry him to Athens, and what was his horror when in the inn where he sat down to eat they handed him knives and forks to eat with!

"What corruption of manners!" says he in a letter written to a friend of his describing his impressions, "and how much the contemporary Greeks have degenerated, forfeiting their right to the virtues of their ancestors! The beautiful Aspasia, wife of an immortal statesman, when she same from Miletus, as I today from London, walked to Athens to see her husband. And handsome Alcibiades used not a fork but his fingers when he wanted to convey something from his plate to his mouth."

And the noble Englishman boarded his yacht and returned to his country cursing those who had introduced silverware into Greece.